


Little Talks

by plaguedbynargles



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bullying, M/M, One Shot, climbed the same tree au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 03:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11660781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plaguedbynargles/pseuds/plaguedbynargles
Summary: An AU in which James Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes meet while in high school, when Sherlock climbs Jim's favorite tree to hide in.





	Little Talks

**Author's Note:**

> Hello yes, this is not the greatest, but I didn't want it to just sit on my computer forever, unread. So here you are! I cleaned it up a little bit, but again, this was written when I was...17 or so. Maybe earlier. I was YOUNG y'all.
> 
> Also, everyone is aged up, here. So imagine James killed Carl in high school, not when he was 12.

 

               Sherlock stomped across the damp grass of the schoolyard, not caring that he was getting his socks and the bottoms of his trousers soaked with dew.

               It was an accomplishment, he supposed, that he’d managed to give up on the day before second period. The October sky was still dim at this hour, and a crescent moon was still faintly visible above the main building. A jeering group of what looked like gorillas in letterman jackets looked to be the only other blokes who weren’t in class, though Sherlock suspected, from what he heard as they strutted past him, that they probably needed it more than anyone.

               Mum wasn’t going to be pleased. That wasn’t a difficult conclusion to reach. It was still so early in the school year, and already he was not only failing English, but had made an enemy of its rather shrewlike teacher, Ms. Hayne.

               It wasn’t _his fault_ that every exercise she asked them to go through was pointless. Secretly, Sherlock thought that the rest of the class agreed with him that no one gave a damn what could be inferred about Juliet’s readiness to go copulate or _whatever_ with Romeo. He’d stopped fully paying attention by the fifth page, anyway.

               Still, this was the third school since January. Not good. Sherlock, without exaggeration, could already _hear_ the smug look on Mycroft’s face. Yes, there was a noise to it at this point.

               With catlike ease, Sherlock hopped the short fence that meant the end of school grounds. He wasn’t even sure if anyone owned this land formally. From here forward there were only trees, and possibly a road if you walked for five or so minutes.

               The younger Holmes shivered. What was he even doing? He couldn’t exactly go back to class now; the humidity left from the rain was curling his hair like mad and he wasn’t sure he could tolerate any comments without spilling some blood. Then again, going home wasn’t an option either, and he didn’t have his books or even a jacket with him.

               Not knowing what else to do, Sherlock gave a quick glance up at the tree nearest to him, an oak yellowed by autumn, and started to climb. Water left over from the rain earlier showered down on him as he went, soaking his clothes, but Sherlock had stopped caring long ago. He didn’t need clothes. He didn’t need school. He didn’t need anything or _anyone._

Finally, he settled on a branch about nine feet off the ground. Sherlock had just finished brushing pieces of bark off his reddened hands, starting to lean back against the trunk, when a voice from his left nearly made him fall out of the tree.

               “What are you doing?”

               Sherlock jumped, breath catching in his throat as he scrambled at wet bark for a moment before finally steadying himself. Once he’d done so, he whipped around the trunk to face his attacker, using another branch as balance and ready for a fight.

               Dark eyes stared back at him, mirroring his expression. They grew more hostile as they took in his glare.

               “I could ask _you_ the same question,” Sherlock sneered. The boy’s knuckles whitened around the books in his hands, his expression darkening further. He was small in stature, a bit thin for his height. Sherlock was fairly confident he could beat the bloke in a fight. Though up in a tree, he wasn’t sure winning would have as much to do with body mass so much as whose shoes had more traction.

               The boy looked Sherlock up and down, and Sherlock wished he looked more presentable. It was hard to look formidable when you were soaked to the bone in rain water and covered in pieces of tree bark.

               “This is my tree,” he finally said, squaring his jaw, “Go get your own.”        

               He had an accent, Sherlock noticed. Sherlock struggled to place it for a moment before realizing:

               “You’re Irish.”

               A hint of irritation crossed the boy’s features before he quickly twisted them into a scowl again, “ _Yes_ ,” he rolled his eyes, “I’m Irish. Now leave me alo-”

               “Are you a transfer?” Sherlock squinted at the boy, “The teachers talk about you. Are you Jim?”

               “Piss off.”

               “Don’t tell me what to do,” Sherlock scoffed, hit by a wave of vicious jealousy, “I don’t know why you don’t go back, _prodigy,_ they all think you’re brilliant. A mastermind in the making, they say.”

               Jim mumbled something unintelligible, looking out at the trees.

               “What?”

               “I said,” Jim’s voice cut through the foggy air like a razor, “That means absolutely nothing coming from a group of complete imbeciles.”

               In spite of himself, Sherlock laughed. Jim turned to him quickly, like he’d been startled. His glare returned.

               “Look, I won’t bother you if you don’t bother me. I just need a break from things once in a while. _Please_ , leave me alone. Or else.”

               Sherlock snorted again, “Or else what? You just said you hated all the teachers in the school, and I’m no kickboxer, but I don’t think you can beat me in a fight.”

               “Is that what you want? To fight me?” the words were a challenge, but Sherlock could have sworn he sounded tired behind them.

               _Oh…_ this must have been what he’d heard Gales whispering about in chemistry.

               “Just leave me alone,” Jim repeated, and started to gather his things. It became evident to Sherlock that he’d been silent for a long time.

               “Wait!”

               There was a brief pause in which only the wind was audible. Sherlock breathed out with it in a huff.

               “It’ll be boring if you go. I haven’t even got my books,” he whined. There was no sympathy in Jim’s eyes.

               “Everything is boring,” he muttered, already starting to lower himself down a branch.

               “What, are you going to just move one tree over?” Sherlock called down after him, convinced this day could not get any worse, “If we’re going to freeze, we might as well do it together!”

               Jim blinked up at him, frowning, “Who said I was staying out here?”

               “Pfft!” Sherlock rolled his eyes, “Who’d go back? Especially the skinny Irish transfer student who’s bookmarked his AP Calculus textbook six chapters ahead.”

               “How…?” Jim glanced at the book under his arm, then back to Sherlock, “How the _hell_ could you have noticed that?”

               Sherlock smirked, “I _observed_ it.”

               Jim looked like he was about to say something, but before he could, he lost his footing and would have taken a nasty fall, had Sherlock not instinctively swung forward to catch him.

               Jim’s palm was cold against his, and _that_ was saying something. Sherlock didn’t miss that Jim was trembling slightly, watching him very closely, waiting.

               Sherlock started to pull Jim up but, after a moment, thought better of it, feigning letting him fall for a split second so that he was back at his original height. It was disturbing that Jim didn’t even seem surprised or startled.

               There were several things he could deduce from that.

               “I’ll let you up,” he rolled his eyes, “Don’t worry. You have to lend me one of those, though,” he nodded at Jim’s bag, swollen with books.

               Jim didn’t say anything. After a moment, Sherlock grew impatient. His arm was hurting from holding both of their weights.

               “ _Well?”_

               “Fine.”

               After a brief struggle, they were back on their respective branches, leaning against the oak trunk and turned away from the school, towards the trees. They were both _freezing_ , Sherlock especially, but Jim leant him the school’s copy of _The Crucible_ , which Sherlock pretended to enjoy for the rest of the day.

               All things considered, it was the best time he’d had at school in a while.

****

               The second day was a windy one, and it sent dried leaves fluttering across the ground and through the trees like red, orange, and yellow butterflies. One even attached itself to Sherlock’s hair, which he hurriedly ruffled out as he made his way towards Jim’s tree again.

               Jim’s tree. Ha. He didn’t even really expect the Irish boy with the dark eyes to be there a second day. Most people, in Sherlock’s experience, had little tolerance for a ‘freak’ like him. So it was to his great surprise and pleasure that he found Jim exactly in the same position as he’d been yesterday, with a stack of books, an ugly brown coat, and cheeks slightly flushed from the cold wind.

               “What’s your name?” Jim spoke before Sherlock could, without looking up from his book. He didn’t sound particularly interested.

               Sherlock blinked. For whatever reason, the question seemed…alien, to him. The last time he’d been asked that had probably been before he’d known how to read.

               “Sherlock,” he finally answered, stomach feeling oddly light. This wasn’t helped by the smirk that quickly twisted itself onto Jim’s features.

               _I made him smile._

“What?” Sherlock frowned.

               “Ms. Hayne isn’t very fond of you,” Jim continued to smirk. Sherlock noticed that he was actually using the book in his lap as a writing surface, a pencil dancing across his page in light, elegant strokes.

               Sherlock frowned, “I know.”

               Jim erased something and, after brushing the shavings off his paper, turned to look Sherlock in the eye.

               “She used your essay as an example of what _not_ to do.”

               Sherlock swung himself up onto his branch, lugging his books behind him. It appeared both he and Jim had gone to their morning classes that day. Now it was fifth hour, which Sherlock would normally have had for lunch. Obviously, this almost solitude was preferable to a noisy cafeteria, any day.

               “Aren’t they supposed to cover the names?” Sherlock was a little bit impressed that he’d pissed Hayne off enough to convince her to _break a rule._

Jim’s pencil was scratching again, “She ‘accidentally’ let it slip.”

               Sherlock started to pull an apple out of his bag, “Maybe I should ‘accidentally’ mention something about that in front of another staff member,” he speculated.

               “You could.”

               Instead of answering, Sherlock took a bite of his apple. It crunched loudly, and Jim stopped writing.

               “Did you bring your _lunch_ out here?” he said it as though Sherlock had brought a live llama, instead.

               “…yes.”

               There was a long silence, then the sound of pencil on paper again. Sherlock continued to attack his apple, and they worked without speaking for about five minutes.

               “Damn it all!” Sherlock cursed, glaring at the brown oak leaf now stuck in his fruit, thanks to a gust of wind. He sighed loudly, drawing his arm back…

               “Wait!” Jim cried, making him freeze.

               “What?” Sherlock wondered for a moment what was causing the panic in Jim’s voice, before finally realizing what he’d been about to do.

               “You’re just going to throw away a whole apple because a _leaf_ touched it?” Jim sounded personally offended on behalf of the fruit.

               “Erm…” Sherlock blinked, “Yes?”

               Jim reached an arm around the trunk to Sherlock’s branch, “Give it here.”

               “What?”

               “I’ll eat it.”

               Several deductions took place at once for Sherlock, but for whatever _stupid_ reason, he decided to play oblivious.

               “My mouth’s been all over it.”

               Jim got very quiet for a moment, but when he spoke next it was hurried, “Ugh. Nevermind. Throw it away.”

               Sherlock felt guilty when he heard the half eaten fruit crash in a pile of leaves. A part of him had hoped Jim would walk back with him to class, but he’d ended up walking across the field alone, unable to get the panic in Jim’s voice out of his head.

****

               The third day, Sherlock came prepared with two apples. He was relieved to see Jim still sitting on his branch, surrounded by a thinning layer of yellow leaves.

               Jim took the apple hesitantly, but without comment. It was enough to make Sherlock feel like dancing.

****

               The fourth day was warm for an October afternoon. Jim was still working on something. He must have lost some of his chill with the weather, because he said something as soon as Sherlock settled on his branch that caught Sherlock completely and utterly off guard.

               “I thought it was funny.”

               Sherlock was confused, “What was funny?”

               “Your essay,” Jim’s voice was very soft. It reminded Sherlock of velvet, almost. It was a clean sort of soft. Not warm like fur or feathers, which were always attached to something domestic. This was a softness that was as warm as you made it, really.

               Sherlock mentally slapped himself. Good God, maybe he should write his next English essay about Jim.

               “I meant that as a compliment,” Jim said dryly. Sherlock gave himself another silent slap.

               “I know. I was just thinking.” _Brilliant. Fantastic explanation, Holmes. A+. What a wonderful detective you’ll make someday._

“About what?” Jim prompted, making Sherlock blush. He silently thanked whatever deity was listening for letting him choose a branch Jim couldn’t see him on.

               “Nothing.”

               “Is it a girl?” surprisingly, _wonderfully_ , Jim sounded more monotonous than before upon voicing this idea.

               Sherlock rolled his eyes, “If it was a girl,” he leaned around the tree trunk to look at Jim, “I’ve only known you for four days. Why would I tell you?”

               Jim slammed his book shut, obscuring whatever he was working on from Sherlock’s view. He turned to look the detective directly in the eyes, their faces inches apart, “You might as well tell me. Who have I got to tell?”

               It was a good point, Sherlock had to admit. Neither of them was particularly popular, but Jim was in even worse of a social situation than he was. Sherlock didn’t run any risk in telling him, because no one would listen.

               Then again, it would be awkward to tell Jim he’d been thinking about him.

               Sherlock tore his eyes away from the Irish boy’s, “What are you working on?”

               Jim shifted the book away from Sherlock’s range of vision, “Drawing,” he answered defensively.

               Curiosity piqued, Sherlock made a grab for the book, “Let me see.”

               “No-!”

               Sherlock wasn’t sure what he’d expected upon opening to the page Jim had lodged his own work in, but it certainly wasn’t this.

               Dozens upon dozens of equations. Some relatively simple, most ridiculously complex. Filled with fractions and exponents that made Sherlock’s head hurt to look at. Diagrams of what looked like star systems were scattered amongst them, with little notes crossed out and erased all around them. Everything was in very light pencil, the elegant strokes of a brilliant mind used to revisions.

               Sherlock turned to Jim in his amazement, but he was looking out at the trees, arms crossed.

               “This is impressive. You’re cleverer than our teachers. You should teach _them_ ,” Sherlock said earnestly.

               Jim’s eyes were guarded when he turned them to Sherlock, “That’s the problem. I’m _too_ smart. Everything is boring. These are doodles, and they’re already too much for everyone to handle.” He started to get up.

               “Wait!”

               Jim waited.

               “You said boring.”

               “Yes.”

               “I…get bored, too. A lot.” Even as they left his mouth, Sherlock cringed at the words. How on Earth could he convince Jim he _understood_?

               “I don’t think,” Jim’s voice was very quiet again, terrible and soft, “it’s the same kind of boredom, Sherlock.”

               Sherlock wished he had more to offer Jim than apples.

****

               The fifth day Sherlock visited their tree, Jim wasn’t working on anything. He was staring out at the woods, leaning against the trunk of the oak without so much as a hat to soften the cold, rough bark against his head. His hands were stuffed in his armpits to keep them warm.

               They didn’t talk much, that day. Sherlock never would learn it was because Jim’s mouth was filled with blood, his face aching from bruises that hadn’t had time to form yet.

****

“Sherlock?” Jim’s voice was very small sounding. Not like velvet. Like the needles used to make it.

               “Mm?” there was a slight tremor in Sherlock’s voice when he answered. October was almost over, and the tree almost bare. Sherlock feared their meetings would end when it was winter, but he was so cold at the moment that he wasn’t able to see this fear as anything but irrational.

               “You haven’t ever been picked on…have you?”

               Sherlock was quiet a moment. He’d been teased, and even ostracized, but he had a hunch that that wasn’t what Jim was talking about.

               “Not really. You?”

               Jim waited for a particularly icy gust of wind to settle, and the leaves to stop rustling before he answered.

               “Nothing major.”

****

               The next day was just as cold as the one before it. Sherlock had almost brought them tea, but he’d settled for their two apples, as usual.

               It didn’t escape his notice that Jim hadn’t been working on his equations for some time now. He missed it. The scratching of his pencil. It was nice knowing someone was doing _something_ that mattered, in this school.

               “Is Carl Powers the reason you always ditch your classes after we meet?” Sherlock blurted out. When Jim answered, his voice was as dry as the bark of the tree they sat in.

               “Carl Powers?”

               He was bluffing. Sherlock knew he was bluffing. From what he’d heard in the hallways, Jim was Carl’s favorite punching bag. Some of the things he heard were borderline sadistic. He’d considered warning Jim in advance of some of Powers’s attacks, but…he had himself to worry about, too.

               “Still passing,” Jim muttered, as though a student as abysmal as Sherlock would be concerned for his _grades_.

               “…I know he hurts you,” Sherlock said gently. He was on thin ice, and he knew it.

               “He can’t hurt me,” Jim’s voice was detached, when he finally answered. It was even worse than if he’d started crying. Sherlock was no professional in dealing with emotions, but at least when someone showed them, he had an idea of what to do.

               Now, all he could think of was to continue swinging his leg back and forth in open air.

               Sherlock hated himself for thinking it, but despite Jim’s damaged gait (a bruised rib or two, he’d concluded), he still was very easy to look at as he walked back towards the school.

****

               The lack of leaves on the tree prompted an unpleasant question from Jim, the next time they met.

               “They’ll be able to see us, soon,” he said quietly, “We’ll have to stop meeting.”

               “We can meet at a different time,” Sherlock mused, not liking the direction this was taking, “At night. Or somewhere else. There are a few back rooms I know no one uses…”

               Jim laughed; a bitter, harsh sound that seemed too old for him, “And then they find us in a closet together. Brilliant, Sherlock.”

               Sherlock wished hearing Jim say his name didn’t make him smile. He was convinced Jim could hear it in his voice when he spoke next.

               “It was worth a shot.”

               There was no response from Jim. Sherlock wished they’d chosen branches closer to one another. Though he supposed, now that their cover was growing so sparse, it was unsafe to get closer, anyway.

****

               For three days after that, Sherlock saw nothing of Jim. He was just beginning to despair when, on the fourth day, he saw Jim’s form in the tree from across the field. If he hadn’t known where to look, he’d never have seen anything, but it was still alarming to note the distance he was able to spot him at.

               Upon closer inspection, there were dark circles under Jim’s eyes. His leg was jiggling nervously, and he was staring ahead intently, as though looking at a maths problem.

               There was nothing there.

               “Where’ve you been?” Sherlock asked indignantly, hoisting himself up into their tree. He reached his branch and settled before there was any answer from Jim.

               “I’ve been around.”

               It was a very blank answer. Sherlock wished Jim wouldn’t be so monotonous all the time. It reminded him vaguely of Mycroft.

               Only…there was something worse about what Jim was doing. Mycroft’s attitude stemmed from a superiority complex and a general boredom with that which pleased most people. Mycroft didn’t even know he was doing it. Sherlock felt like Jim, on the other hand, was hiding something intentionally. Something corrosive.

               “Has Powers been getting worse?” Sherlock asked tentatively. Maybe if he was more blunt, Jim would be, too.

               Jim huffed a laugh just a tiny bit too enthusiastically, “You know, I think he’s grown tired of me.”

               Sherlock licked his dry lips, “Pity,” he said sarcastically.

               Jim’s dark eyes flicked to Sherlock’s, mercurial and unstable. His grin, when it stretched across his face, was one so filled with pain that Sherlock expected, at any second, it would break and Jim would be reduced to tears.

               “Indeed,” Jim tilted his head to the side, and Sherlock thought, _awfully_ , that things like that were the reason Jim was getting beat up in the first place. The hand the other boy was holding a pencil in, he noticed, was shaking.

               “You know,” Jim continued, his voice trembling with a cruelty that he was rather bad at imitating, “I wish he’d keep it up. Really.”

               “Really?” Sherlock repeated. Sneered, almost.

               “Yeah,” Jim’s terrible grin returned, “I do. In fact,” something was hovering on his pink lips, a confession that Sherlock dearly, shamefully wished would be mundane. He looked Sherlock up and down, “…I wish you’d join him. Make your life easier.”

               Sherlock, who had been taking great measures to make his mouth look kissable, his hair elegantly disheveled, felt something in his chest sink. Jim brushed past him, smelling of ointment, and leaving him to ponder whether the last part of the statement had been intended as ominous or not. In that moment, a thousand thoughts raced through Sherlock’s mind, but not one of them was that this would be the last time he saw Jim for a decade.

***

               It was him.

               Oh, he wished it wasn’t. He wished it wasn’t, but it could be no one else.

               The whispers that day were of grief, of shock, even of relief, for a few, but none matched the utter _sickness_ that Sherlock felt, knowing that he’d wanted to kiss, or _know_ or befriend, a murderer. How many times had Jim been sketching equations, and how many times had he been sketching out a plan for this?

               By God, Sherlock had no idea how he’d done it. And by God, Sherlock had had no idea that Jim was the kind of man who would take a _trophy_ from his victim. No matter how much he pleaded, begged, even shouted at his teachers and the police and his parents, no one would listen. Not a single adult thought that the missing shoes of Carl Powers held any significance.

               A tragic seizure, they called it.

               He felt like _Mycroft_ , for God’s sake, going around tattling to everyone that this was a murder, not an accident, but his conscience wouldn’t allow him to simply let it slide. It would, however, allow him to forgo mentioning Jim’s name. There was a large part of Sherlock that wondered what kind of pain Jim must have been in, always hungry, doing maths alone in a tree, friendless and moody for the entirety of his academic career. With a pang, Sherlock wondered whether he was going to kill himself. Academic environments were no picnic for him, either, but he at least had Mum and Dad to come home to. He had no idea what awaited Jim when he came home. If he had one. He couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d panicked when Sherlock had almost thrown away half of his apple.

               Despite the distance that had been growing between Sherlock and his new friend, he had never stopped bringing their daily snack with him to class. Both of their portions went uneaten, that day. The next time they would share an apple, it would be carved with a knife.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope at least one person enjoyed this.


End file.
